Natsume Soseki 夏目漱石

Lu You 陸游

November 4, 1192 · Song China

The wind rolls up the rivers and lakes and rain darkens the village. The hills on every side sound like sea waves turning over. The brushwood fire is gentle and the rough rug is warm. My cat and I are not going out.

風卷江湖雨闇村，四山聲作海濤翻。 溪柴火輭蠻氊暖，我與狸奴不出門。

"The Fourth Day of the Eleventh Month: Great Wind and Rain," the first poem, in the Complete Song Poems

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Lu You 陸游

1180s · Song China

I wrapped up salt to pay for a little cat and brought it home. It guards every one of the ten thousand books in my mountain study. I am ashamed that my house is poor and its reward so thin: no rug to sit on in the cold, no fish with its food.

裹鹽迎得小貍奴，盡護山房萬卷書。 慚愧家貧策勲薄，寒無氊坐食無魚。

"For My Cat," in the Complete Song Poems

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Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣

mid-11th century · Song China

Ever since I had my cat Five-White, the rats never touched my books. This morning Five-White died. I made her an offering of rice and fish.

自有五白貓，鼠不侵我書。 今朝五白死，祭與飯與魚。

"Sacrifice for My Cat," in the Complete Song Poems

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Michel de Montaigne

1580s · near Bordeaux, France

When I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play.

Essays, book 2, chapter 12, "Apology for Raymond Sebond" · in place of the original: the English translation by Charles Cotton (1686, revised by Hazlitt in 1877)

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Mark Twain

October 2, 1908 · Missouri, USA · Connecticut · About the kittens of his cat Tammany

One of them likes to be crammed into a corner-pocket of the billiard table--which he fits as snugly as does a finger in a glove and then he watches the game (and obstructs it) by the hour, and spoils many a shot by putting out his paw and changing the direction of a passing ball.

Letter to Mrs. Patterson

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Lewis Carroll

1865 · Oxford, England

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’ ‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter 6

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